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Month: May 2019

‘Dumela’ means hello in Setswana, the language spoken here in Botswana. We’re trying to learn some words but that’s the main one. It’s really important to greet everyone you see here, even if you don’t know them.

I’ve never been so relieved to get off an airplane in my entire life. I only ever want to be on a plane for that long again so that I can go home in a month. Thankfully, the flights and customs were all uneventful (we went through customs in South Africa, not just Botswana, so I got another stamp for my passport!) I hope that it’s just as smooth when it’s time to go home.

One of the buildings on the University of Botswana’s campus

The University of Botswana is very different from NC State. The people here have been very hospitable and are happy to help us with whatever we need. It’s definitely different here than at home, like the Internet. We thought we would all have to physically connect our laptops to ethernet cables only to find out when we arrived that they now have wifi in these dorms. Unfortunately, when you try to use the wifi it doesn’t work. Luckily, there’s something you can use to turn your laptop into a hotspot you can connect your phone to. I can’t do that on my laptop (Chromebook problems), but the other NC State student in my suite can and is letting me use hers.

This is called The Three Dikgosi Monument and is of three important chiefs who were a part of why Botswana is so successful.

Over the last few days we’ve been exploring Gaborone. We’ve been to the mall (not the same as at home–I’d consider it to be more like an outdoor shopping center) a few times to get necessities and to do a little souvenir shopping and went to visit a monument as well. I got a super cute wooden zebra. We also had orientation today and toured the campus. While we were touring we saw a mama warthog and three of her babies walking around the campus looking for food. It was definitely the most exciting thing that we’ve seen so far!

This was the warthog family we saw on campus!

We start class tomorrow and later in the week we’ll be visiting an orphanage, which I’m excited about. I’ll make sure and post again later this week or early next week!